New Apple iCloud Phone with iPhone 5 Release

In the run-up to what looks like an Apple and iCloud Fall announcement comes the news of a new iCloud phone, that could be offered by Apple as a lower-cost alternative that features less flash memory onboard, so that users can tap into iCloud features for storage.

Whether this is actually true Apple news or iPhone rumors remains to be seen, but it came to light today via the site AppleNApps.com, with a story about an iCloud phone that would work well in the Apple ecosystem of encouraging users to take advantage of Apple services. If you bought a lower-priced iPhone, you'd obviously be encouraged to pay a subscription fee to store stuff via iCloud, right?

"It has come to our attention that Apple is planning to combine iOS 5 and iCloud with a piece of hardware internally referred to as the iCloud iPhone. The iCloud iPhone will rely heavily on Apple’s new cloud based offering, and less on internal storage," reads the story on AppleNApps.com. They cite "three independent sources" supporting the theory of the iCloud phone.

An iPhone 5 release date has not been announced at this point, but rumors and speculation point to a release sometime in the Fall, perhaps October. Apple used to release the iPhone in the late Spring, but a release in the Fall could provide a nice Apple buzz that resonates into the holidays and beyond into January.

So more grist for the rumor and speculation mill ... what the iPhone 5 / iCloud / iTunes offering will be for iOS is totally up in the air at this point.